Almost all of our contemporary images of Afghanistan are dark and desperate. Actor Tom Hanks called it a “pile of rocks” in the movie, “Charlie Wilson's War'' (2007). I saw this film in Kabul, Afghanistan a year after its release, and watched my Afghan friends cry when they heard that dismissive comment about their beloved country. How much do we know about Afghanistan? Do we understand its history, culture and peoples? Thomas Barfield has written a brilliant book to educate all of us about a country we should know and appreciate: “Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History” (Princeton University Press, 2010). Thomas Barfield is a professor of Anthropology at Boston University. He is the author of “The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan” (1981); “The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China” (1989), “The Nomadic Alternative” (1993), and co-author of “Afghanistan: An Atlas of Indigenous Domestic Architecture” (1991). Barfield begins by taking a look at Afghanistan's giant ethnic rainbow: Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks and Turkmen, Aimaqs, Nuristanis and Pashai, Qizilbash, Baluch, Arabs, Pamiris, Jugis and Jats and Kirgyz. To add to this complexity, he notes that ethnic groups can be tribal or non-tribal. However, Barfield states that it would be “a mistake to see Afghan ethnic groups as fixed ‘nationalities' that have some overriding commonality and history that demands political unity.” Ethnicity is just one of the key ingredients in understanding Afghanistan. Barfield also considers the role of Islam as a pervasive influence in the country. “Afghanistan,” he writes, “is an example of an older form of Islamic society in which religion is not an ideology but remains an all-encompassing way of life.” Separation of religion and government would be as inconceivable as “asking a fish to separate itself from the water it swims in.” Barfield devotes considerable attention to the political development of Afghanistan over the centuries. It is a fascinating story of kings and conquerors; faded empires and dueling dynasties. Afghanistan was once at the center of it all. Barfield states that Afghanistan “had a positively magnetic attraction for conquerors, not because they coveted the wealth of Afghanistan, but rather because control of Afghan territory gave them access to more prosperous places like India or central Asia, or because it gave them control of regional trade routes.” Afghanistan is noted for rejecting foreign invaders, as the British and the Soviets learned in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, respectively. The Afghan strategy was to repel foreign occupiers “by making the country so ungovernable that they wanted to leave.” It was a successful tactic, but it left the country in political ruins. The Taliban learned this hard lesson when they came to power in 1996. They were easily derailed (but not defeated) in the tragic aftermath of Sept.11, 2001. Afghanistan entered the twentieth century in complete disarray, which continues till today. Barfield draws many important lessons from his study of Afghanistan: “Both Afghans and foreigners remain tied to visions of what they wish the country to be that obscures its present reality and possible futures. The long view of Afghanistan and its history present possibilities for resolving the country's current problems, but it also presents warnings about how even the best planned policies can fail.” Thomas Barfield's book on Afghanistan is likely to become the first source that serious students turn to as a guide to this complicated country. His comprehensive portrait of Afghanistan is a stunning achievement. - SG Joseph Richard Preville is an American writer living in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. __
